


Stage

by Liebelit



Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 20:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14143560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liebelit/pseuds/Liebelit
Summary: Now they were about to be called out any minute, the stage buzzing with noise and activity only a few feet away, and Glitch wasmissing; probably lost and confused. Glitch was missing, and alone.





	Stage

"I couldn't find him anywhere." DG said as she walked back into the waiting room where they had been told to stay until they were called to the stage, her confused frown now shifting to worry. 

"What about you, Raw?" Cain asked expectantly, turning to the only other person in the room who might know where Glitch was, "Can you sense him? Feel if he's anywhere near?"

The viewer shook his head and looked down at his nervous hands, "Raw cannot..."

"Damn it," Cain swore under his breath and turned away from his friends in blind frustration and concern. He stared at the open door they had all just come through after their respective searches for their missing member, the same door the four of them had crossed together when they had been led into the room to await their public awarding and recognition for their part in saving the OZ; and the same door Glitch had left through, alone, just under an hour ago. 

None of them had thought anything of it, certainly not that they should go and babysit their more than capable friend when he had said he wanted to walk down the hallway and back to stretch his legs. At the time Cain had thought of accompanying him, if only because he liked spending time just with Glitch. In fact, Glitch had even invitingly asked if anyone wanted to come along, but neither DG nor Raw were interested in following. And Cain, being the keeper of rules and follower of orders he was, refused to leave the room where they had been told to stay and wait. 

He was beginning to deeply regret that. 

Now they were about to be called out any minute, the stage buzzing with noise and activity only a few feet away, and Glitch was _missing_ ; probably lost and confused. Glitch was missing, and alone. 

After sifting through what was happening in his mind, it was that thought out of all else that finally made Cain snap out of it and move into action again.

"Stall them if you have to," he shouted back at the others without looking behind, already out the door and walking at a fast pace, "I'll find Glitch!"

He heard DG calling out his name as he darted down the long hallway, but once he turned the corner and started going down the stairs two at a time he couldn't hear her voice or the sounds coming from the huge ceremony theater anymore.

While he got further away from that level of the palace, he searched through his memory for any ideas of where Glitch might be, especially considering that they had searched for him in the entire floor and the one below; and that he had gotten so far away that Raw couldn't sense him. Or at least that was how Cain was choosing to interpret the viewer's inability to locate Glitch with his power, because the alternative, that Glitch could be hurt or worse, was unthinkable. So he walked fast, just short of running through the palace's levels and thought of where Glitch could have wandered off to in the time he had been gone. 

The facts were that Glitch was scared of heights, so maybe he didn't like being on the highest floor of the palace and decided to go to the ground floor; that Glitch glitched, so maybe he had forgotten where he was and had lost his way in all the labyrinthine halls. But there was something else, a hint of something that Cain remembered hearing him say during their travel together. Glitch was afraid of crowds. 

During the day they had spent trekking from DeMilo's dingy wagon to the witch's tower, Glitch had talked a lot, even mentioning many random details he remembered from his old life that came to his half a brain one minute and were hidden again under the cloud of misfiring synapses the next. Cain had alternated between acting annoyed or like he didn't care, but he couldn't completely ignore what the headcase had been saying when he spoke with such openness and fervor. Glitch had shared many odd details about himself that day, but one of the things that stuck with Cain and that he was remembering now was his fear of big crowds and of being the center of attention in one. He didn't know if it was something he had felt before being headcased, or if it had developed after, but whatever the case was, Cain was sure Glitch must have felt intimidated by the crowd waiting for them to step out on the stage. 

That might have been the cause for Glitch running off if it wasn't a glitch, but that still didn't solve the question of where he was. Cain was almost at the lowest floor when he dashed by a storage closet right next to the next flight of stairs and stopped in his tracks before going down. 

He had heard something from inside, a garbled voice...and a sob. 

All of a sudden both relieved and even more worried now that he might have found his missing friend, Cain moved toward the closet with slow deliberate steps and put his hand against the door.

"Glitch?" He said softly, "Are you in there? It's me..."

"Cain?" Came the muffled, teary-sounding reply from the other side of the door, "What are you doing here?" Glitch sobbed as the low voice, which Cain now realized was coming from a radio, went on in the background. "You—you shouldn't be here." 

"Can I come in? I was worried about you and I just—" At a loss for words, Cain lightly banged his forehead against the thin door, "Please, Glitch." 

He stayed there like that for a long and silent moment, leaning against the door in both physical and emotional exhaustion. But just as he was losing hope that Glitch would let him in, he heard the lock coming loose and a second later the door was pulled back by Glitch. As soon as he opened it he let himself slide down to the floor and sat with his knees drawn up, arms around his legs, and the small scrappy radio tucked tightly between his thighs and his chest. 

"Glitch," Cain said as he dropped to his knees in front of him, "Are you okay? I was worried. We all were." 

"You shouldn't be here..." He repeated, a few stray tears falling from his big expressive eyes when he looked down at the radio, "You should be there." 

It was then that Cain paid attention to what was being said on the radio, though he already had an idea. 

" _In this historic day for the OZ thousands have been invited to the largest ceremony theater within the Central City Palace and thousands more have gathered outside the gates to bear witness to the awarding of the heroes who saved the OZ. To recap, the evening started with a section of commentary led by Queen Lavender and her daughter Azkadellia, leading up to the four heroes of the OZ joining us on the stage to receive their official royal awards and recognition. However we've just gotten word that the former Royal Advisor Ambrose and former Tin Man Wyatt Cain could not be on the stage this evening for unknown reasons, and the crowd will have to be satisfied with only half of the heroes tonight..._ " 

Cain stopped listening as the radio host started giving a profile commentary on each of them and focused on Glitch again, "Honestly, I'd rather be here."

"But—you deserve to be up there with them... Don't get me wrong, I know I deserved my spot there too but I can't help that I have stage fright." He sniffed, frowning down at the radio but looking more disappointed and forlorn than truly devastated, for which Cain was grateful. Though it didn't mean he wasn't still worried.

"It's just _crowds_ ," Glitch went on, making a face, "Why do they have to be so...crowdy? They just make me confused and scared and anxious and that makes me glitch even more—glitch even more—glitch even m—" Cain shook him lightly by the shoulder, putting a stop to that one.

"Thanks," Glitch sighed, "I'm just saying, I'm terrible with crowds. Even thinking about them makes me glitch! But you, you're great with crowds," 

Cain raised a skeptical eyebrow and whatever else Glitch was going to say died before leaving his mouth.

"Okay, maybe not great. But you don't let it get to you, you don't let it show... And I—I can't control that."

"So you preferred to hide out here rather than face the stage?" Cain asked as he shifted to sit next to Glitch.

"Well that seems like the most logical course of action when one suffers from stage fright, don't you think?"

"Hmm, can't really argue with that." He wasn't much of a crowd person either.

"Do you think they're upset with us for not showing up?" Glitch asked, his eyes wide but thankfully not tearful anymore, while Cain settled close beside him.

"I don't care how they feel, I care how you feel," he said sincerely, looking into Glitch's deep eyes, "And like I said before, I'd rather be here with you."

"You really meant that?" 

"Yes, and I wish I had joined you from the start." Cain leaned in and closed the small distance between them to press a gentle kiss on Glitch's soft lips. 

Lips that opened for him in a tiny gasp of surprise and then kissed back with the same passion Cain had admired and desired so much before. The crowd and the stage being an issue of little importance now, Glitch moved out of his curled up position to be closer; and in the process let the quiet radio tumble to the floor, unheard and forgotten. 

They might have missed the honor of being on the largest and most prestigious stage of the world, but this little stage of their own was just where he wanted to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2015.
> 
> Sorry for the super boring title! I usually wrote these as drabbles based on one word prompts or something similar and they just got longer than expected but I never gave them proper titles. If anyone's interested I'll probably post more of my old works eventually (probably any I can find that are at least 1k words or longer). Thank you for reading!


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